


if the mountains should crumble to the sea

by nonbinaryxion



Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/F, Game: Kingdom Hearts II, JUSTICE FOR KAIRI 2K19, Keyblade Wielder Kairi (Kingdom Hearts), M/M, Minor Axel/Saïx (Kingdom Hearts), Not Canon Compliant - Kingdom Hearts II, Protagonist Kairi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-11
Updated: 2019-08-06
Packaged: 2020-02-29 11:53:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,846
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18777745
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nonbinaryxion/pseuds/nonbinaryxion
Summary: There’s power sleeping within you, Princess. If you give it form…The light dimmed. Slowly, Kairi lowered her arms.There, across the pillar, three weapons now hung suspended in the air. A sword. A shield. A staff....it will give you strength, to move forward. Can you do it?





	1. destati: part I

**Author's Note:**

> thanks nomura i gotta do everything around here myself i GUESS
> 
> (minor warning for little implicit kh3 spoilers throughout the fic?)

 

"The hole in my heart is so big, / room enough for the  
sky to pass through / holding Jupiter's hand.  
I can fill it with a mountain. / I can fill it with a name."

**— _The Piano_ , Aracelis Girmay**

 

* * *

 

It all began with a boy. Kairi knew that as sure as she knew the pull of the tide, even if the specific details of the boy were lost to her. His laugh, his name, his smile.

Kairi was used to this sort of thing. She’d grown up glancing back on her past through a hazy curtain: there were shapes, vaguely human, and indistinct voices, and on occasion Kairi thought she almost heard her own name. Crooned with love, or called across a large space, or hissed as a threat. Details of her childhood dissolved into the sea of time. This, though—this was different. Because the memories were _there_ , but inconsistent. Fragile. Whole from a distance, but crumbling with a little pressure.

Kairi gripped the leather strap of her school bag, gazing across the town rooftops from the crest of the hill. The late sky stained the ocean horizon pink-and-peach.

“Do you remember those boys who used to hang out with us?”

Selphie blinked. Her school uniform, identical to Kairi’s, was rumpled from running to catch up; she leaned forward, trying (and failing) to catch Kairi’s eye. “Riku?”

Kairi’s heart stuttered; she hunched her freckled shoulders a little, as if she could fold up her heart to steady it. _Riku._ This boy she remembered. His moonlit hair, and sea-glass eyes, and the quiet smile he reserved only for his best friends. The one who’d held her gently while he protected her from...Ansem? She recalled flashes of warm arms, her head lolling against Riku’s chest, but her heart was…

( _It’s up to me. Only a true keyblade master can open the door, and change the world. Kairi, I’ve carried your heart this whole time._

Was this a memory? It seemed patchwork.)

That wasn’t all she remembered about Riku. There was also a dark smile, and the chilling flicker of golden eyes.

“Yeah,” Kairi murmured. “Riku.”

Selphie, oblivious, laced her hands behind her back to stare up at the clouds. “I wonder what happened to him,” she said. “I sure miss him. It’s like he just disappeared one day. It’s so _weird_.”

_You don’t know the half of it._

“He’s far away,” Kairi said, wistful. “But I know we’ll see him again.”

“Sure! Of course we will.”

Kairi toyed with her pendant. The paopu charms on her bracelet chimed, little flickers of silver. “And the other boy?”

Selphie frowned. “What other boy? You mean Tidus, or Wakka?”

Kairi shook her head. “The one who was with Riku and me all the time, remember? We used to play together on that island, I think. But now his voice is gone. I can’t remember his face, or his name…”

“You were...close?”

(Her heart, hidden somewhere warm.)

“We must have been, right?” It was always the three of them on that little island. Kairi, collecting sea shells to show Riku. Riku glancing up from whittling crude wooden swords to give Kairi _that_ smile, but then his eyes would drift towards the shorelune, heavy with something he refused to say, and she’d follow his gaze to see... “I just feel awful about it. Forgetting, I mean. So I told myself, I can’t go back to that island until I remember him. It doesn’t feel the same if we’re not all together, you know?”

She didn’t want to turn around, to see scepticism in Selphie’s face. She didn’t have to. It was barely disguised in Selphie’s voice: “Are you _sure_ you didn’t make him up?”

Selphie might as well have been broadcasting her thoughts: _like all those stories you told as a kid, about coming from another world,_ before Kairi grew old and smart enough to keep her mouth shut and pretend to remember nothing at all. She closed her eyes. Shook her head again, one sharp movement, as if she could dislodge the static there. There was too much empty space for it to be her imagination. There was _someone_ else there, someone safe, carrying her throughout all those worlds—worlds that people like Selphie could never, _ever_ know about—and delivering her back to the shores she called home. Wherever he was, was it with Riku? Were he and Riku safe, together? Did they still think about her?

Sometimes, she could almost picture the other boy’s eyes. Blue as the deeper parts of the ocean. Blue, just like…

A heady wave of dizziness swept in. Kairi took a sharp step back, ribs tight, and felt a hand at her elbow.

“... _airi? ...ou okay…?_ ”

Like the air had vanished, and the ground turned to shifting sand, and Selphie’s voice carried a hundred miles away. Much, much closer than Selphie was another voice. A boy’s.

“ _Naminé?_ ”

Behind her closed eyelids, someone was looking at her. A pair of blue, blue eyes, wide and confused.

“ _Naminé, what’s happening to me?_ ”

_Who...who are you? And that’s not my name. I’m..._

The earth bucked beneath her, turning to waves. Kairi stumbled, sighed—and slipped into the water.

 

* * *

 

 

“ _Kairi!_ ”

Selphie’s bag landed on the dirt with a heavy _thunk_ as she dropped to her knees. Her eyes were wide, hands hovering with uncertainty over a prone Kairi. What happened? She’d been fine a moment ago. Sure, weird and dreamy, like always, but still _fine_.

Selphie bit her lip, giving Kairi two experimental shakes. “Kairi? C’mon!”

Kairi’s eyes didn’t open. Selphie rocked back on her haunches, taking steady breaths, trying to stay calm. _Okay._ Okay. Uh. The main town was ten minutes away, back towards school. Should she run for help? But to leave Kairi just _lying_ here...

A tiny mumble snagged Selphie’s ear. She got down on her hands, leaning in close. Kairi’s lips—they were moving, murmuring a name. Over and over. One that Selphie didn’t recognise. But Kairi breathed it like it was important, like she was trying to hold onto it.

“Sora…”

 

* * *

 

“ _Naminé._ ”

The boy.

He was still here.

Not _her_ boy. At least, she didn't think so.

Where was _here_ , exactly?

Her hand twitched, curled into a fist. Her lips parted, her eyelashes—closed, her eyes were closed—brushing something hard and flat. Ground? Her eyes fluttered open.

The muted light, stained green through the sift of trees, blurred out all detail for a moment. She wondered when she’d dozed off, the way she used to sometimes, under the shade of palm fronds on the beach on autumn afternoons. But this didn’t _feel_ like the fine sand of Destiny Islands, and the light, something was strange about it. She rubbed her eyes, and realised it wasn’t coming from above, but below. This wasn’t ground, it was glass, and it was _warm_.

“Selphie?”

Head still swimming, she lifted herself unsteadily to her feet. She stared at the floor until her brain could assemble the mosaic of colours into something coherent. Stained glass. There, against a backdrop of dappled greens, sat Kairi: legs crossed, indigo eyes wide open to the sky, cupping her hands to her chest like she were cradling something precious. The likeness was perfect. Too perfect. Unnerving.

She turned in slow circles, absorbing it all. The endless ocean behind her, framed by palm trees, something like a distant castle jutting from the horizon. Flowers circled her flyaway red hair like a crown.

This didn’t _feel_ like a dream.

“ _Naminé, what’s happening to me?”_

The voice was young, unfamiliar, and rife with uncertainty.

“Who…” Kairi pressed a hand to her forehead. “Who are you? And that’s not my name! I’m Kairi.”

“ _Kairi...I know you. You’re that girl he’s always with._ ”

Kairi’s eyes snapped upward, to the barren black sky surrounding the pillar—because this place _was_ a solitary pillar, a flat circle dropping abruptly into silent abyss. Her heart juddered in her chest, and the light filtering through the glass pulsed in tandem. “ _Who?_ Who’s _he_! Please, a name!”

“ _I’m...Roxas._ ”

“Okay, Roxas. But can you tell me _his_ name?” Her eyes darted around, as if she could find a source for the voice, but instead settled back on the mosaic at her feet. In the sky behind Kairi’s likeness, there were faces. The face of her dad, the mayor, beside the vague silhouette of what might have been an old woman. Riku’s, with that quiet smile, the way she remembered him before everything went to hell. And next to him…

“Is this him? The boy I knew?”

Next to him was another boy. His face was round and childish, hair splayed in large spikes, smiling with his eyes. The portrait had no colour, but Kairi’s mind’s eye painted that in itself: brown skin, brown hair, ocean eyes. She could picture that face pouting, or squinting into the sun, or shaking salt water from his mane.

Under her stare, he almost shimmered to life. She wanted to press through the glass, drag him out, and make him corporeal. Answers were so close. She could _feel_ it.

The boy—Roxas—was silent.

“ _Please,_ ” she said, “can you hear me?”

“ _You forgot me? Thanks a lot, Kairi!_ ”

For a moment, Kairi stopped breathing.

“ _Though...I'm one to talk, huh? We're both as bad as each other. So I guess I can give you a hint…_ ”

That. _That_ was a voice she knew. Muffled and distant, as if underwater, but _familiar_.

She twisted, following the voice to a flash of pulsing light. It flickered towards her. If she reached forward, she could—

“ _Starts with an—_ ”

—but the light sputtered like a candle flame, and then his voice was gone.

_No._

“No!” She was _so close._ She stumbled forward to where the light had been, but only found air. She called out, but even the other boy’s voice had vanished, leaving just Kairi. Stranded here, in this strange place. Alone. Again and again, she wound up waiting and waiting and _alone_.

She clenched her hands into rigid fists, willing them to stop shaking. No. If she gave up hope, her friends would really be lost. She _wouldn’t_ , not ever. She’d made a promise.

_You too? Oy vey, you kids just can’t stay away._

Kairi started violently, skittering back a step.

_Should I stick up a ‘no trespassing’ sign? Not that it’d work._

Scratch that. She wasn’t alone. Somehow. “Who’re _you_?”

_Oh, that’s a fine welcome for someone who’s come to help!_

This new voice was strange. Young, almost, and feminine, _nothing_ like any voice Kairi knew. But it raised a good point, regardless of whether that point came entirely disembodied. Kairi rubbed her eyes. “I...I’m sorry. I just. I don’t understand what’s happening.”

A brief pause, before the mystery voice heaved a sigh. _That’s not surprising. But your heart must’ve brought you here for a reason, so…_

Another flash of light, much brighter—Kairi shielded her eyes.

_There’s power sleeping within you, Princess. If you give it form…_

The light dimmed. Slowly, Kairi lowered her arms.

There, across the pillar, three weapons now hung suspended in the air. A sword. A shield. A staff.

_...it will give you strength, to move forward. Can you do it?_

Kairi opened her mouth. Closed it. Opened again to say, “I think I’m gonna pass out.”

The voice made a noncommittal noise.

She stepped forward, footfalls echoing against the glass. Maybe she should dismiss this as some elaborate hallucination, will herself to wake up at Selphie’s feet—but Kairi knew better. Something was happening to her. Something important. Something that could save them? This pillar felt like the edge of a precipice, teetering.

She brushed the hilt of the sword with her fingertips; it was humming.

_The power of the warrior, huh? Is that your choice?_

Brute strength? Kairi shook her head, drawing back her hand. “No. That’s not what they need.”

_Hm. Then what?_

She glanced up, from the staff to the shield. The latter looked heavy, but she reached for it, lifting the shield from its invisible perch.

_So, the power of the guardian. To shield your friends—is that it?_

She weighed the shield in her hands, gripped it by the handle: sharp-edged and rounded like an aspis, with a mouse head engraved on its face. Heavy, but a good weight. Despite everything, Kairi found herself smiling. “Yeah,” she called out to the sky. Already, she felt taller, stronger; she straightened her shoulders and the shield’s power echoed in her bones. “I’m ready.”

The sword and staff dissolved.

_You sure about that, Princess?_

An abrupt chill tightened Kairi’s spine. She spun in place, and her stomach dropped sharply: her shadow was moving. She didn’t even _have_ a shadow in this place before. But one had appeared, shifting in unnatural patterns. Growing. Splintering off, into shadowy creatures half her size, twitching and scuttling and staring with bugged, unblinking eyes. The same monsters she vividly remembered from the night the islands were swallowed up. Who’d backed her into a corner, pinned her to the ground and clawed out her heart.

Heartless.

She’d been surrounded by Heartless.

Kairi dropped into a defensive stance, raising her shield. Her pulse rose to her ears, but the mystery voice still rang clear:

_Why don’t we test that?_


	2. destati: part II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _So-ra. So-ra._ Like a pulse.
> 
> She curled a hand to her heart to stop it from bursting out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (see endnotes for potential content warnings)

_It occurred to Kairi, as she untied her boat and kicked away from the beach, that maybe she should've grabbed a coat. Or, at least, something with sleeves. The rain was fine but wild, flung in every direction by a fierce wind and drenching her hair. She shuddered, already soaked through and shoulders bare to the cold, but there was no time to double back—that freak storm cloud was expanding fast over the island where they played. It could destroy their raft. All their hard work!_

_Only the closer she rowed, the less it looked like a storm cloud. It was too solid, too dark, too round. Unnatural. The ocean, so calm just a few hours ago, bucked against her and forced Kairi to wrestle for control with grit teeth. Her arms screamed. The cold of the rain suddenly seemed bearable next to the icy pit of fear in her stomach._

_This freak storm. Her bad feeling today, about Riku. Their escape plan._

_Maybe it was all coincidence._

_But the little pier wasn’t empty. Despite the hostile sea, another boat was moored in the shallow water, ‘SS Highwind’ carved inelegantly into the side. Riku was already here._

_Kairi steeled her heart, and rowed harder._

 

* * *

 

She could do this.

The shield felt, suddenly, much heavier. Her stomach revolted. Her heart thrummed out of control. Her arms were hardened from baseball and the last year of self-defense classes had sharpened her, but they'd been preparing her for other people, creeps in dark alleys. Not feral manifestations of hatred and despair.

Still. She could _do this_.

Their heads were about the size of Kairi's upper body. Bigger, even, with wheeling neon eyes. Their black claws scored the glass and their antennae twitched hungrily towards Kairi's light.

A heartless to her left spasmed, then rushed in. The hypervigilant Kairi snapped to attention, throwing her shield against it. The heartless collided with a shockingly heavy _thunk_. It rolled away, but something wicked-sharp and ice-cold slashed Kairi’s calves and she gasped, staggering, flinging her shield wildly behind her and catching another heartless with the sharp edge. It dissolved like shadow against flame.

_Sloppy, Princess, real sloppy._

Kairi tightened her grip on the shield, temper flaring. Just for a second. “I thought you said you were here to help!” she cried out, skipping to one side and slashing at two heartless. One vanished. The other only stumbled.

 _I_ am _helping! But you have to be able to help yourself, too._

What did they think she was _doing?_

More heartless materialised, bursting from impossible shadows on the floor. Kairi followed instinct and hopped out of reach, letting their claws scrape the face of her shield, but they swarmed on all sides. It was harder and harder to breathe. She hunkered behind her shield and stepped back—

Her stomach lurched violently. Kairi gasped, pitching herself forward, away from the yawning edge and the chasm below.  Heartless’ blows caught her arms and legs as she threw herself through the crowd and out the other side with a hiss of pain, clutching an elbow. The heartless left more than physical marks. Beneath the weep of blood, Kairi sensed the deeper wound—a score of darkness, soul-deep, gnawing and clinging like the jaw of a stubborn wolf. She half expected the lacerations to bleed black.

Not that she was sure _any_ of this was physical. Maybe it wasn't even real.

She still didn't want to find it out what waited over that edge, though.

Blood trailed down her forearms and slickened her grip on the shield and her torn-up knees stung from scraping across the glass. She kept blocking and swinging and whittling away the heartless’ numbers but for each shadow conquered, three more congealed in its wake. _There’s no end to this._ A heartless burst from the floor to Kairi’s right. She lashed out her shield with a raw cry but—

She’d bled too much. The shield slipped from her fingers. As the heartless launched over the edge, so did her weapon.

“ _No!_ ” Kairi threw herself forward, barely catching herself before going over, but it was too late: the shield had vanished into the black.

Her breath tore away with it. Her eyes blew wide. A bead of blood trickled to her fingertip, shivering, then tumbled silently like a stone into an infinite well.

She wondered if it were possible to die here.

Maybe not. Maybe none of this was real. Maybe Selphie would shake her awake and tease her for daydreaming so hard she’d fall asleep standing, any minute now. Kairi flexed her aching fingers into fists, then uncurled them again, counting back from ten. Nine, eight, seven. Any minute now.

Six. Five.

Any minute.

Talons sunk into Kairi’s ankle. The spell shattered: Kairi screamed, kicking out. Her school pumps connected with the thing’s head and launched it away, but its friends were drawing in again. Kairi fumbled in her pockets for something, _anything_ , a pen or compass or keys to slash with, coming up empty-handed. No matter. She rocked unsteadily to her feet and raised her red-and-white knuckles, tight to stifle their shaking. She could do this. She’d punched out Letty as a kid, once, when Riku wasn't there to stand up for them and Letty had stolen Sora’s blitzball, and—

Her right palm seared like she'd snatched a hot iron. Kairi gasped and seized her wrist with her other hand as light erupted between her fingers, a kind of stark-white that forced Kairi to slam her eyes shut against the glare. Still the light shot through her eyelids and straight through her head, and the heartless emitted grinding shrieks of what might have been pain. Her hand got hotter-hotter- _hotter_.

The light died; her prickling fingers were wrapped around something warm. Holding her breath, she cracked an eye open.

_Keyblade._

The hilt in her grip was deep blue, curling up into heart-shaped guards like a breaking wave; a golden vine coiled up the shaft, and where the teeth should be clustered a sunset of leaves and flowers. Kairi brushed her fingertips against them reverently: sunflowers, pink asters, morning glories. From the pommel dangled a paopu charm, star-like and marigold. She raised the weapon, weighing it. It fit her closed hand perfectly.

_Keyblade._

Keyblade?

Like Sora’s.

Her pulse thudded, two heavy beats, and the muted light from the stained glass below flared with it. _So-ra._ The heartless shrieked again, reeling away.

“Sora?” she said, and the light pulsed again, and she remembered—

_The sun dropped on an empty horizon, dripping amber into the sea. Sora squinted at it as if, maybe, he could stare hard enough to catch a glimpse of one of those worlds that Riku was so obsessed with—a structure, or a silhouette, or a hole in the sky. Kairi had to wonder too: if they sailed far enough, would they tumble over the edge? Would they land in one of those flower beds that used to fascinate Kairi as a little girl, in the courtyard of a town she could barely remember? Unless these islands really were the edge of everything. This little pier they sat on the furthest point in the entire universe, the horizon a full stop._

_Still, Sora’s open faith settled her nerves. Maybe Riku had changed, just a little. Maybe that was just part of growing up, and it wasn’t fair for Kairi to find that unnerving; maybe she felt a pang of guilt at joking, even briefly, about leaving him behind. As if the three of them were anything less than a package deal—but Riku knew that, right? Maybe there was nothing to leave for. If nothing else, Sora was a fixed point: optimistic, sappy, dependable and kind. She tousled his hair a little, drawing his attention away from the sky._

_“Sora, don’t ever change.” It wasn’t fair to ask, really. But Kairi had never considered herself particularly fair._

But he did change. Everything changed, and Kairi’s efforts to stop it were little more than hands fighting a tide.

She'd realised the moment Sora refused to bring her to fight Ansem: somewhere along the way, while Riku was busy self-destructing and Sora was getting stronger without her, she'd become a liability. An outsider. Again.

 _So-ra. So-ra._ Like a pulse.

She curled a hand to her heart to stop it from bursting out.

But she had a keyblade now, and Sora's memory, and the heartless were circling like she was a threat instead of a meal. She lifted it a little, and the heartless bristled. Was there a right way to hold this? She'd never had any formal sword training, but neither did Sora, did he? Oh God, all she could think about was baseball. No time to mull on it. _Here goes nothing._

This time, Kairi struck first.

Gripping the keyblade with two hands, like a bat, she squeezed her eyes shut and cracked it down with all her strength on the closest heartless. It wasn't like hitting a skull. Its head gave a little under the blow, like a sac of viscous fluid, then _popped_ ; she flinched, braced for a burst of black blood. But the heartless fizzled into nothing, like the others.

Kairi stared at the wicked-sharp flora at the end of her weapon: stainless, glittering faintly. Her eyes sparkled. “Hell yeah.”

Two more rushed her. Kairi let out an undignified squeak, lashing out to catch both with the same swing. She muttered a prayer and charged the crowd, swinging half-wildly, catching flyaway hair in her mouth. She felt clumsy, untrained, but _powerful_. The keyblade parted the shadows like—like it had for Sora.

Crack.

_Their grip on each other’s hand got tighter, tighter, tighter as Riku swung his wooden sword and his story spun wilder and wilder: dashing knights and pirates and monsters with dripping teeth and meteor showers. Sora and Kairi’s heartbeats raced but they were smiling, because Riku was right. When they were big, when they got far away from this island, Riku would be a knight. Riku would keep the monsters away._

Crack.

 _She closed her arms around the little shadow, which was the same and so,_ so _different to all the others, and squeezed. She squeezed harder and harder until the light exploded and the little shadow became a pair of arms, holding her back._

Two more heartless dissolved.

 _The shade of a tree: a sanctuary from the teasing and barbs of the older kids. She refused to cry in front of them. To let them know that their whispers of_ crazy _could get to her. She’d scrambled into the tiny gap between the tree trunk and a thick bush and snarled twigs into her hair, and the Mayor would be angry—but that didn’t matter as much as hiding._

_Footsteps. Kairi snapped to attention with puffy eyes, but it was only two boys her age. One grinned at her, offering a chubby hand and a name._

Her calves and forearms throbbed like she’d stuck knives in them. But with a guttural cry, she sliced the final shadow clean down the middle.

Quiet.

Kairi rested the tip of her blade against the floor. She sagged against it; every breath was raw, heavy, sinking like river stones. Her entire body echoed with the weight of her pulse.

_Well done, princess. I was starting to wonder if you had it in you._

“Th-thanks for the…” Kairi said. She couldn’t get much further than that, fatigue sweeping in. Her school uniform was tattered and smeared. Oh man. If this wasn’t an elaborate hallucination, her dad would _kill_ her.

_Exhausted, huh? That’s to be expected. You’ve never used a keyblade before, have you?_

The keyblade flickered, then flared white. Kairi caught a flurry of phantom feathers to the face as the weapon sputtered out from under her.

“ _Ngh—_ ” Kairi’s heart tripped as she tumbled forward, elbows colliding _hard_ with the stained glass; a smear of blood scored across Riku's cheek. She lay there, her hand curled near Sora’s static face. Sora, the boy she couldn’t remember.

Her heart, hidden somewhere warm.

_I’m sorry I had to put you through all that. But it’ll get easier with practice, you’ll see._

“What…”

_I’m proud of you, Kairi. You found your lights again. Now follow them, okay? They'll need you._

The water was rising again, tugging Kairi back down.

_May your heart—_

The colours all collapsed into one, then fell into black.

 

* * *

 

“ _...ot panic…_ ”

Selphie’s voice swam sluggishly towards her, cracking in the middle.

“...hear me, Kairi? I’m _not!_ ” Something jogged Kairi’s shoulder. “But I _am_ gonna be mad at you if you don’t wake up!”

Kairi stirred, grinding trail dust against her cheek. She opened an eye.

Selphie squeaked. She gripped Kairi by the forearm, raising her torso off the dirt path. Her hand fluttered at Kairi’s shoulder, pressing briefly to Kairi’s forehead. “Oh. Oh my _God_ , Kairi.”

Kairi rubbed her face, squinting; after the quiet glow of that stained glass place, the low afternoon sun was a sharp stab to the retina. “What just…”

“You passed out and _scared_ me! Do you have sunstroke or something? Tell me how many fingers I’m holding up.”

Kairi waved Selphie’s hand away, looking around. She was back on the island, definitely. Looked like she hadn’t moved at all. The sun had barely shifted, and a quick glance down showed that, aside from a fine layer of dirt, her school uniform was still in one piece. So was Kairi, her only injury a scraped knee. But her muscles ached like she’d wrestled a shark. She curled her right hand, almost expecting it to close it around something.

She murmured a thank-you when Selphie tugged her to her feet. “I’m...I’m okay, Selphie. Really.”

“You sure? You kept saying a name. Who’s Sora? It sounds kinda familiar, actually.”

Her heart kicked, and she smiled. _So-ra._ Her best friend. “Sora,” she said, quietly, just to say it.

His smile. His voice.

She remembered _everything_.

Her eyes fell to the island in the distance, and before she could command her legs to move they were hurrying her down the hill. She skidded slightly, legs stiff, and heard Selphie jog after her with a sharp _hey!_ of alarm. It wasn’t a long run. In minutes she was at the beach, slowing when she hit the edge of the high tide. Further along the beach, parents were drying their sons’ hair; two girls from Kairi’s class lay sunbathing; little boats sat moored and gathering dust. 

Kairi rummaged in her bag, digging out a glass bottle just as Selphie caught up. Selphie leaned against her knees, panting, “Why...do you have...to _do_ that?”

Kairi grinned apologetically. Selphie shot her a _look_ , but was quickly distracted by the bottle in her hand and the rolled slip of paper inside. “What’s that?”

“A letter,” Kairi said. “I wrote it when I couldn't sleep, to the boy I couldn't remember. I said I wouldn't give up until I find him.” She'd even sealed it with wax, fashioning her own stamp from an old craft kit. She couldn't resist the little flourish. “When I stopped writing, I remembered that we made a promise, something important. This letter is the key, I just know it.”

“Are...you going to send it?”

The bottle was sealed with a cork. She could drop it into the ocean now, let the tide carry it away. She knew it would find him eventually. No, it wasn't lack of faith staying her hand. It was the stranger’s words. _Follow them._

She was so _sick_ of waiting.

“No.” Kairi dropped the bottle back into her bag. “I'm going to deliver it myself.”

 

* * *

 

Stars blinked. Far away, across a distance immeasurable by time or mileage, a quiet town stirred awake in the glow of twilight. It shivered and stretched, breathing in the air of a new day.

Nestled within that oblivious town, its digital echo shook violently.

A boy convulsed, and gasped awake. His eyes wheeled around his bedroom, searching for blood, maybe, or the quickening beep of hospital equipment. Or a girl. The redhead who looked like Naminé. Was it a dream? No, he _knew_ he'd fallen off that tower. Stood up, slipped, and plummeted to the plaza below while that girl’s voice echoed in his head. How could he have ended up back in his room?

_I should be dead._

He wasn't. The frantic rhythm of his chest under his palm proved it.

Then a black-gloved hand clamped down over his mouth—someone muttered an apology—and it occurred to Roxas that, maybe, he was about to be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i've added soriku as one of the main pairings since the more i write, the more i realise that my gremlin soriku brain is OUT of control. and on that note i'll probably be updating tags as i go along to reflect the direction of the story  
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>  **cw:** fighting, mild blood and injury


	3. interlude at twilight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He could say that hate had made this easier—had smothered that yearning, for a while, the way he’d hoped—but it hadn’t. It only made the love hurt.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a little about how i'm writing this fic: the aim is to stay at least a chapter ahead! i.e. only once i've finished writing a chapter head do i allow myself to go back, edit, and post the next chapter that needs to be posted. so if this fic goes quiet for a while i'm struggling with the next few chapters lol
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> (as always, see endnotes for content warnings)

Twilight Town was, if possible, almost as static as the islands. The sky was a gentle oil paint blend of peach and mauve tones, drifting languidly in-and-out of cloudy nights; true blue skies were rare, he’d noticed, breaking up the clouds only occasionally and only at midday. Those were the days that electrified the townsfolk, driving droves of kids to the nearest beach, an hour’s train away—when they weren’t wrapped up in the tedium of school, that is. Study and play. Rinse and repeat. He wondered if any of these kids dared to look beyond the distant hills that hemmed in their little world, like he did. Did they ever dream about what might exist beyond the train track?

More often, it rained.

He hoped it would rain again soon. Kids from town wandered into the forest more often than any of them liked, and bloody prints were bound to be noticed. Not that they would stick around long enough for it to matter. Still. If the last year had taught him anything, it was overt caution.

Which seemed a laughable thought when he was limping from tree to tree, pressing a hand to his abdomen. He stumbled, grunted, braced himself against a towering hickory. Blood crept into the black fabric of his coat, his gloves. Funny. He'd figured this body wouldn't bleed—that seemed a little too _human_ for its tastes.

Whatever. The wounds were manageable. That wasn’t what had him leaning into the trees, head light, air thin. He breathed it like it was heavy.

He'd failed.

He'd sacrificed everything he had left to sacrifice. He'd thrown home and honesty and his own _stupid_ heart away. He'd still failed.

The grass looked like a convenient place for throwing up. Instead he clenched his jaw and persevered towards the clearing, where the iron-wrought gate had rusted so severely it was serrated to the touch; he was too tired to teleport to the other side, but the lock had been smashed in the assault. He pulled the gate shut behind him anyway. The garden on the other side had tells of a gardener’s former passion project, abandoned and fallen into modest chaos: the hedges sagged from their once-uniform shape and the stone pillars had crumbled, choked with vines, fragments rotted off and swallowed in long grass.

The old mansion itself was in scarcely better condition. Its face had faded in the sun, and the intricate flora carved into the large portica had been all but weather-beaten away. The stained glass in the central spire was now a single glittering jewel in a derelict carcass, the flicker of lace curtains in the upper windows the only sign of life—alarmingly white, the twitching sclera of the manor. He half-stumbled through the doors, into a foyer littered with the remains of old furniture.

Once he’d found Naminé wandering this foyer with a duster. She hadn’t been dusting so much as moving the dust around, but the effort was oddly charming. When he’d asked why, she said, “This place remembers what it’s like to be a home. Can’t you sense it?”

“No,” he’d replied. Maybe no one could sense it the way she could. Or maybe he was just an insensitive bastard. “I guess not.”

She looked at him. _Really_ looked. “We could still make this a home for us. I think I’d like that.”

There was no safe way to answer that. It was too easy to like Naminé—to forget what she was.

“Riku!”

He winced at the name. Looked up, sharp enough to dizzy him. Naminé stood on the mezzanine. Her face was a picture of concern so perfect, he had to wonder if she’d copied it from one of the magazines he’d smuggled her. She hurried down the stairs, a flash of white-and-gold in the gloom, but when she moved to touch his side he shifted away.

“But you’re hurt.”

He shook his head. Potions hadn’t worked on him for days now. There was the old fashioned way, of course—gauze and disinfectant—but he wasn’t going to remove this coat if he could help it. “Sora?” he said, and what he meant was _we have more important things to worry about right now_.

“He’s safe.” She always spoke like she was afraid of trespassing, with the wavering blue eyes of someone waiting to be told to leave. “DiZ told me he's making preparations downstairs.”

They hadn’t gotten to Sora. Riku wanted to sag with relief—but it wouldn't last. They'd fended off the assault (he corrected himself: the _distraction_ ) for now, but it wouldn't be long before the cavalry returned. A bitter old scholar, a limping teenager and a demure artist—a bar joke set-up, maybe, but hardly a formidable defense force.

Still. Better to lose Roxas than Sora.

Naminé worried her necklace. “Where can we go?”

He moved to drag a hand back through his hair, but stopped himself just in time. “I…” God. He hated this voice. “I don’t know. DiZ never mentioned another safehouse. What else did he tell you?”

She hesitated, closing both hands over the pendant. “He’s...angry,” she murmured. Riku stared for a moment, waiting for her to elaborate. Then it hit him.

“He scares you?”

She hunched her shoulders, and a hot flash of ire lit his chest. Then unease—he inched away from her a little, lapsing into conflicted silence.

Then: "I'll handle DiZ. You should go get ready to move."

She relaxed, relief as plain as gratitude on her face. It made him feel ill all over again. "Thank you, Riku."

He watched her hurry back up to her room, gently closing the door behind her. As quiet a ripple as possible.

 

* * *

 

Naminé wasn't wrong. He found DiZ standing over his computer in the ill-lit basement with furious focus, muttering darkly to himself. DiZ flexed his hands as if longing to curl them into fists.

" _Damned Organisation,_ " he hissed. " _Damn Xehanort._ "

DiZ easily towered over Naminé; between that and the imposing sweep of his red cloak, Riku understood why a girl like her would be nervous. Still, Riku couldn't help but remember Wakka grinding his teeth and growling when Tidus lost his favourite blitzball at high tide—a juvenile tantrum. Maybe that was unkind, but so was DiZ.

"Don't break anything," Riku said.

DiZ twitched his head in Riku’s direction. For a moment he thought DiZ would turn his temper on Riku—not that he could do much. No matter how big DiZ made himself, Riku knew the man wouldn’t dare take a swing at him.

Riku met his eye stoically, and DiZ quickly turned back to the keyboard. His voice was a growl: “This base is compromised. We must move Sora immediately and decide how we are to retrieve Roxas once more. All our progress—damn them!”

He said _compromised_ like an accusation, like he knew exactly who to blame, and Riku almost flinched. Shame burned at the back of his throat. But DiZ did this, externalising his anger when things fell apart, so Riku held his composure. “We still have Sora. We’ll start again.”

“At what cost? The Organisation will not wait!”

“But they need the keyblade. That gives us _time_.”

“Until they bring Roxas back under their thumb.”

As if it were inevitable. Maybe it was. But Riku remembered—vividly, despite his best efforts—the thunder-spark in Roxas’ eyes when they’d fought at the base of the skyscraper.

So much like Sora. Alone, in Hollow Bastion, with a wooden sword.

The grinding of DiZ’s teeth was audible. The man ripped something out of the computer—rectangular, small enough to slip into his palm—and stepped back as the cold light of the screen flickered out, taking its charts and numbers with it. He held his arms behind his back as if restraining himself.

“Destroy it.”

Riku blinked. “What?”

“This computer is evidence, and I will _not_ allow my research to fall into the Organisation’s hands. We have everything we need. Destroy this so we may move on. Naminé will monitor them on the move.”

“So she’s _useful_ now?”

The barb left Riku’s mouth before he could give it thought.

They both tensed—the air seemed ready to snap between them. Riku braced for the flare of DiZ’s temper: a fist to the monitor, an icy retort.

But DiZ didn’t move. He didn’t meet Riku’s eye.

When Riku peered at his face, DiZ looked almost meditative.

“Heal yourself,” DiZ said. Suddenly subdued, as if his anger had evaporated; if anything it made Riku more uneasy. “We will have to traverse the realm between. The Organisation can trace our portals.”

“And where _are_ we going, exactly?”

“A safe place.” His tone was heavy, final. Riku wanted to argue. But he’d learnt how stubborn DiZ could be—and truly, he was tired. He was _exhausted_. The pain of his wound was lost in the general ache of this body, his coat needed repair, and the dark shadow in his chest gnawed at the bit; every attack, every drain on his strength, brought him closer to that edge. He couldn’t afford to go there again.

Maybe Naminé was right. He needed rest. He was useless to Sora without it.

He took a steadying breath, summoning Soul Eater. The blade, a red-veined bat wing,weighed icy in his hand. He aimed it at the console and plunged it into the machine with a grunt, dragging it through the wiring and hard drive. Sparks burst and died.

“I’ll be downstairs,” Riku muttered, brushing past DiZ. The man didn’t stop him.

He limped through the gloom of the underground hallway, lined with vacant stasis pods like budding lotuses. Only two pods were occupied, and he slowed as he passed them: Donald Duck and Goofy slumbered away within, blissfully unaware of the uncertainty of their own fate. Of course, their memories had been damaged too. He wondered if they were in better shape than Sora's.

This wasn't a place that belonged beneath a crumbling manor, but it hadn't been built by DiZ either. All the technology, as insane as it looked to Riku, was too old; the pods had been choked with dust when they’d arrived. More than once he’d considered asking DiZ where it all came from—what this mansion was used for—but he didn’t think DiZ knew or cared as long as he could get his work done, and all the yellowed pages in the library hadn’t revealed much.

Sora’s chamber was ahead.

He stepped in and was awash with light: white walls, white pod, white bulbs sluicing all shadows from the corners. Except him. He couldn’t help but feel like a dark stain on the room, with his black uniform and black thoughts; stepping towards the pod still felt like trespassing. His hand drifted towards the translucent glass, but stopped short. His heart shuddered.

He’d dreamed a hundred times of reaching through the pod and brushing the hand inside. In those dreams, he left shadowy fingerprints.

He sank his injured weight into the nearest chair; his sigh was as heavy as the rest of him.

“Hey, Sora…”

 

* * *

 

_"Hey, Sora."_

_However quietly he spoke, his words still seemed too loud in the shadowless chamber. It was a place for hushed whispers, for silence. Riku caught a hand in his hair as he dropped his voice further; he noted, absently, that it was getting long. The ends were splitting._

_"Guess I really screwed up this time, huh? Really thought I was the hero for a minute."_

_Sora was tight-lipped. Obviously. He wondered if Sora would have anything to say to him, even if he were awake._

_God, what was he saying? This was_ Sora _he was talking about. Sora would forgive a knife in the back, literally._

_Not that he’d blame Sora if he didn’t._

_In a way, this was the first time he'd been alone with Sora in—huh. Riku frowned as he thought, really_ thought _about it. That long? Even before their islands vanished, he couldn't remember the last time he'd been alone with_ either _of them._

 _Maybe because Sora and Kairi were joined at the hip (at least, that's how it seemed to him back then). Or maybe it was that Riku didn't feel safe. Not from his friends, but himself. Because sometimes Sora would glance his way, or grab his hand, or say his name, and an ache like wanting would_ _grip Riku by the throat._

 _It gripped him now. He couldn't_ see _Sora—not in the traditional sense, not through this blindfold—but if he focused he could sense him, his light flickering like a pulse. Not a bonfire, but a campfire glow. And he could paint the other boy's face against his eyelids like a virtuoso: all gentle edges and summer hues and open pages. Riku's heart juddered._

 _He could say that hate had made this easier—had smothered that yearning, for a while, the way he’d hoped—but it hadn’t. It only made the love hurt_ _._

_“Kairi’s still safe, if you’re worried. I checked.” From a careful distance. “It’s weird, but it’s like all those months never happened to them all—the storm blew in, everyone’s memory went muddy, and then they woke up the next morning like Kairi was never missing.”_

_He’d seen the posters, though, for him and Sora. For all the others too. He'd caught sight of a Missing Persons board in the town centre, crowded with the faces of people who’d never made it back from the greedy dark._

_He couldn't bring himself to look for very long—even from a distance—but there were faces he recognised._

_Tidus' dad. Wakka's brother, Chappu._

_Zexion’s words from months ago twisted his gut:_ Many hearts were forever lost to the darkness because of what you did.

_Riku shook his head. Breathed through his nose till that rolling-seasick-nausea passed._

_“I...don’t know what’s gonna happen to me after all this.” His hand curled at his chest, where Ansem coiled around his heart like a vine. “But I never got to apologise, to either of you. You and Kairi deserve that, you know? You deserve that much. I can’t give up till I do.”_

_“Riku.”_

_DiZ’s voice was a quiet command. Riku stiffened. How long had the man been there?_

_“You have an assignment,” DiZ continued. “Whispers of a new nobody in the Organisation’s ranks. You are to investigate at their home world.”_

_Riku didn’t like having the man at his back—he was too much of an unknown. But Riku didn’t want him to see whatever was in Riku’s face right now, either. He nodded curtly without looking, waiting for DiZ’s muffled footsteps to disappear back to the mansion before he could relax again._

_“I’d better get going, then."  Riku held his hand out. Hesitated, then brushed the humming glass with his fingertips; he pulled them back quickly. “You’ll wake up, Sora. Whatever it takes.”_

 

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"It is time."

 _So much for rest._ Riku lifted his head, still in the shadow of his hood. DiZ had arrived with Naminé in tow, hugging her sketchbook to her chest; the pearl bag slung over her shoulder was full to bursting. He noted the bulging outlines of pencils and other odd trinkets. She noticed him looking, and smiled.

Riku hadn’t bothered to pack anything. His room would be left in the same state he’d found it in, his life an ephemeral footprint on the western wing.

DiZ narrowed an amber eye, his mouth a thin line. The only features visible through the red cloth wrapping his head. “Why haven’t you healed?”

Behind them both were Donald and Goofy’s pods, mounted on some kind of floating platforms—more tech Riku didn’t understand. DiZ was rolling a third platform alongside him.

“Later,” Riku grunted.

“It will be a perilous journey. I need you at full strength.”

“I’m strong _enough_.”

DiZ looked at him a long minute, but let it go. He crouched at the console at the base of Sora’s pod, digits flashing across the screen to disengage it; Riku heaved his body from the chair to help DiZ hoist the pod onto the third platform. Sora jostled a little, but didn’t stir.

Sora. If there was one blessing to everything that had just happened, it was that Riku could see him with unobstructed eyes: his limbs too long for his body now, his baby fat cut away and his hair more unkempt than Riku had ever seen it. But it was still _Sora_ , still the same sleeping face Riku had memorised during long, restless nights on Sora’s bedroom floor.

Sora had already lost ten months, and now they’d lost the day. Ten _months_. He’d lost a month of his life in the realm of darkness and that was enough to screw with him.

_Whatever it takes._

“Now,” DiZ said.

Take a breath. Set your jaw. Move forward.

He crushed the pain into a box at the back of his mind, drawing from his reserves of strength. Then he raised a hand, hissed, and tore a hole in the world.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (riku voice) and i feel Gay Yearning in this chili's tonight
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> (s/o to my main man @AceSetoKaiba for letting me bounce ideas off him! ily dude x)  
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>  **cw:** blood, injury, self-deprecation, mentions of character death, riku's potty mouth, ansem the wise being Like That(TM)


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